As is by now well-known, sovereign wealth funds from the Mid-East, as well as state-entities from China, the Pacific Rim, and even India are trying to lock up chunks of the world's future food supply. Western agribusiness is trying to beat them to it. Western funds - many listed on London's AIM exchange - are in turn trying to beat them. The NGO GRAIN, and farmlandgrab.com, have both documented the stampede in detail.

Hedge funds that struck rich 'shorting' US sub-prime have rotated into the next great play of our era: 'long' soil. "Productive agricultural land with water on site, will be very valuable in the future. And I've put a good amount of money into that," said Michael Burry, star of 'The Big Short'. Needless to say, this has set off a fierce backlash. Brazil has passed a decree limiting acreage held by foreign-owned companies, the latest evidence that our half-century era of globalisation may be drawing to a close. "There are many foreigners who don't buy to produce, but rather to position themselves in places with water, mineral resources and hydrocarbons," said Pablo Orsolini, a sponsor of the legislation.

In Madasgascar, a deal with Korea's Daiwoo Logistics to plant corn on territory half the size of Belgium led to the downfall of the government in 2008. The lease was revoked. "Madagascar's land is neither for sale nor for rent," said the new president. Even Australia's senate has called for an audit of foreign-owned land and water projects. The allure of global land is obvious. The World Bank says industrial and "transition" countries are losing 2.9 million hectares of cultivated farmland each year.

His comments at a forum in Beijing follow a string of remarks by Chinese officials questioning US credit-worthiness and the reliability of the dollar. China's authorities seem split over how to respond to moves on Capitol Hill for legislation to punish Beijing for holding down the yuan. The central bank has ruled out use of its "nuclear weapon", insisting that it would not exploit its $2.45 trillion of foreign reserves for political purposes. "The US Treasury market is a very important market for China," it said.

However, the mood is hardening on both sides of the Pacific. The dispute risks escalating if China's trade surplus with the US climbs further and more US jobs are lost. US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who has taken a softly-softly line in the past, said on Friday that China had done "very little" to correct the undervaluation of the yuan since ending the dollar peg in June.

Mr Ding reflects thinking among some in the Poltiburo, who seem convinced that the US is in decline and that China's rise as an exporter of goods and capital give it the upper hand. "They are utterly wrong," said Gabriel Stein from Lombard Street Research. "The lesson of the 1930's is that surplus countries with structurally weak domestic demand come off worst in a trade war."

He described the implicit threat to sell Treasuries as "empty bluster" because Beijing's purchase of these bonds is a side-effect of its yuan policy. "Bring it on: it will weaken the dollar, which is what the US wants. The interest rate effect can be countered by the Fed."

He said a double-dip recession remains unlikely but stressed that the world has not yet escaped a deeper social crisis. He called it a grave error to think the West was safe again after teetering so close to the abyss last year. "We are not safe," he said. A joint IMF-ILO report said 30 million jobs had been lost since the crisis, three quarters in richer economies. Global unemployment has reached 210 million. "The Great Recession has left gaping wounds. High and long-lasting unemployment represents a risk to the stability of existing democracies," it said.

The study cited evidence that victims of recession in their early twenties suffer lifetime damage and lose faith in public institutions. A new twist is an apparent decline in the "employment intensity of growth" as rebounding output requires fewer extra workers. As such, it may be hard to re-absorb those laid off even if recovery gathers pace. The world must create 45 million jobs a year for the next decade just to tread water.

Olivier Blanchard, the IMF's chief economist, said the percentage of workers laid off for long stints has been rising with each downturn for decades but the figures have surged this time. "Long-term unemployment is alarmingly high: in the US, half the unemployed have been out of work for over six months, something we have not seen since the Great Depression," he said.

Our president and the secretaries of state and defense deplored Pastor Jones' plan to burn 100 Qurans but could do nothing to stop him, other than to plead with him. Jones decided to call it off himself. What was the message received by a billion Muslims? "Muslims must understand that our Constitution protects the desecration of your holiest book, (yet) America is a place where people have a right to denounce Islam as a religion 'of the devil' and burn the Quran in public."

Having gotten the message, Afghan mobs chanting, "Death to America," burned the American flag and set off to kill our soldiers. Can rural Afghans understand the refusal of a US president to stop what they see as a televised sacrilege against their faith? In their country, Jones would have been stoned to death. That is who they are. What would a US soldier say to an Afghan soldier who asked, "If you Americans believe it is the exercise of a precious right to burn our holy book, the Quran, why should we fight beside you, against fellow Muslims, who would fight to protect the Quran?"

Now consider the message sent to US troops. Their commander, General Petraeus, warned that, should the Quran burning proceed, it could endanger their lives and imperil the mission President Obama sent them to fight and die for. To those troops, President Obama was saying that his read on the First Amendment forbids him from interfering with book burnings in America that could get them killed in Afghanistan. How do you fight and win a war like that, with a war president like that?

Saturday, the president declared: "Americans are not - and never will be - at war with Islam. It was not a religion that attacked us... it was al-Qaida." President Bush declared Islam "a religion of peace." Both statements are understandable, for if we are perceived as at war with Islam, we will lose that war, and Osama bin Laden will have won by having broadened and defined what the war was about. For tens of millions of Muslims and growing numbers of AMERICANS ARE INDEED COMING TO SEE THIS AS A RELIGIOUS WAR. How do we win a long war when we cannot name the enemy?

Headlines in the Hebrew media say that Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, a well-respected rabbinical authority within much of the religious-Zionist sector, called the custom a "superstition." The custom involves waving a chicken over one's head three times and saying, "May this chicken be an atonement for our sins... This chicken will go to slaughter, and we will be inscribed for peace and long life."

The Animal Rights Society wages a public campaign each year at this time against the custom, which is still widely practiced in Sephardic and Hassidic communities. The society received a letter from Rabbi Aviner this year in strong support of its position. The dean of Yeshivat Ateret Cohanim in the Old City of Jerusalem and the co-Chief Rabbi of Beit El wrote that the custom should not be practiced: "Since it is not a clear obligation, but rather just a custom, and because of problems with kashrut [regarding the slaughter] and cruelty to animals, and in light of the words of the rabbis [who forbid it] quoted above, it is better to use money as an atonement and thus support the poor."

He wrote that though the custom is hundreds of years old, "there have been Sages who were not pleased with it, such as the author of [the classic Code of Jewish Law] Shulhan Arukh himself, who wrote that it is a 'custom of the Emorites,' or in simpler words, a superstition."

But I really have given Obama the benefit of the doubt until now. I have asked the questions and directed the investigative reporting that has changed America's political landscape on the eligibility question. WND conducted the first national poll on this subject 15 months ago. Back then, we were shocked that 50 percent of Americans knew there was a controversy about his birth certificate and his eligibility - because WND is the only news organization in the country that pursued the story. Today, the latest polls show 58 percent of Americans don't believe Obama's story and suspect he is not eligible to serve. That is a big shift in public opinion in a short period of time.

During that time, despite suggestions to the contrary, I never accused Obama of being born elsewhere. I never concluded he is constitutionally ineligible. I avoided speculation on what we might find if Obama ever did willingly and openly release his records as other presidents and presidential candidates have. However, when Barack Obama insinuated to Brian Williams of NBC that he had done everything he could to quell America's curiosity and doubts about his constitutional eligibility for office - turning his own cover-up into an indictment of the people - I say the time for deference is over.

"I can't spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead," Obama told Williams in an interview on NBC's Nightly News. With this kind of arrogance after the patience the American people have demonstrated over this matter, I'd say it's time to conclude that he is ineligible for office. He's had plenty of time to provide the evidence to clear himself of this charge, this suspicion, this indictment in the form of overwhelming public opinion.

He has failed to answer the charge. He has failed to enter a plea. He has failed to show up for a hearing. Therefore, I no longer afford him the presumption of innocence. It's time to recognize what we have serving in the White House today - a pretender, a usurper, an arrogant narcissist who believes it's beneath him to answer the questions of the public and to demonstrate his worthiness for office.

So, right here and now, I declare the president ineligible by default. Maybe he can prove I'm wrong. Maybe he can't. But the people cannot be expected to prove a negative. I feel confident we'll soon learn the truth. Personally, I think we're very close to reaching the critical mass that will bring this issue to a head.

Budget clothing chain Primark today joined other retailers in warning about the impact on both higher cotton prices and other costs. The firm also made clear the Government's decision to increase VAT to 20 percent in January will also push up the price of fashions. Primark has built its success by undercutting established rivals with cheap throwaway fashions, including the 2 pounds T-shirt and 4 pounds pair of jeans for men. However, it seems it will be impossible to repeat these deals when higher wholesale prices feed through to the high street early next year.

Flooding disasters in North Eastern China and Pakistan have pushed the price of cotton to rocket up in recent weeks by more than 700 per cent. Floods have destroyed over 4.25 million acres, affecting an estimated 25 percent of the cotton crop. Higher cotton prices are expected to see retailers and manufacturers looking to switch to using more man-made fibres.

BBC unions last night declared war on the Conservatives with an extraordinary threat to black out coverage of David Cameron's keynote speech to the Tory party conference. They unveiled a series of damaging strikes which will also disrupt its reporting of Chancellor George Osborne's spending review next month. The two 48-hour walkouts, in protest at plans to overhaul the corporation's gold-plated pensions, have been deliberately timed to wipe out coverage of the two most high-profile events in this autumn's political calendar. Unions are expecting 'well in excess' of 10,000 BBC workers to support the action. It is thought the corporation would still be able to put together coverage of the events, but that it would be 'lightweight'.

Furious Conservatives said the threat was final proof of the inherent Left-wing bias of BBC staff. A Tory source said last night: 'These dates make the strike political.' Philip Davies, a Conservative member of the Culture Select Committee, said: 'Mark Thompson (the BBC Director General) was saying recently that the BBC had a Left-wing bias in Margaret Thatcher's time, but that has since been ironed out.'

He might now want to think again. 'It's entirely predictable of course and demonstrates the inherent Left-wing bias that still exists. What it shows is that their bias is more important to them than broadcasting events that are of interest to the public. They don't want to get the Conservative message across because it doesn't fit in with their agenda.' Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries said: 'These are cynical and politically motivated strikes which prove the BBC unions have declared war on the Government.'

The first walkout is planned for October 5 and 6, during the Tory conference. David Cameron usually makes his keynote speech on the Wednesday - which this year is October 6. Journalists, technicians and other broadcast staff will stage another strike on October 19 and 20, the second day of which coincides with the Government's long-awaited spending review. The effect on coverage could be dramatic.

In a speech to his association's conference, he will suggest that history shows that widespread disorder is "inevitable" at some point. Chief Superintendent Barnett will also warn that crime will rise if front-line policing is cut too severely. Fears of widespread civil disobedience are being voiced as unions threaten co-ordinated strikes and a "campaign of resistance not seen for decades" against spending cuts.

Delegates at the Trades Union Congress yesterday voted almost unanimously in favour of a motion that called for a co-ordinated campaign against the cuts. One union leader branded the Government the "demolition Coalition" and said it had declared war on working people. Brendan Barber, the usually moderate general secretary of TUC, said the cuts would make Britain "a darker, brutish, more frightening place".

Austrian Finance Minister Josef Proll felt tired but jubilant when he returned to his hotel on Place Jourdan in Brussels late last Monday evening. For hours on end, he and his European counterparts had been given a detailed presentation by European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and his task force on how the shaky monetary union could be stabilized and crisis-ridden Europe could be put back into shape.

Austria's Proll, who has always been somewhat critical of Brussels, enthusiastically said that the EU is more or less implementing "what we have been discussing for years." He said that the European Union was about to take a "quantum leap" that will "fundamentally change Europe."

The new enthusiasm for European solutions arises from sheer fear. "We have seen the abyss, and it has changed us," says Austrian Finance Minister Proll. He says that no head of government or finance minister can forget the weekend of May 7-9 this year. Greece stood at the brink of bankruptcy and other countries were starting to teeter. A bankruptcy would have dragged down other countries and possibly torn apart the monetary union. Hundreds of billions of euros had to be scraped together overnight to prevent a continental meltdown. "During these hours," says Proll, "a new European community was born."

Delegates to Monday's annual meeting of the Trades Union Congress will be asked to support joint union industrial action as well as other forms of protest. They will be asked to vote on a motion urging the TUC to "support and co-ordinate campaigning and joint union industrial action, nationally and locally, in opposition to attacks on jobs, pensions, pay or public services".

The motion, titled "Defending public services", is signed by most of the country's biggest unions including Unison, Unite, GMB, the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, the Fire Brigades' Union and the NASUWT. A national demonstration is being planned for next March which could attract hundreds of thousands of people in the biggest show of public anger in a generation.

Mark Serwotka, the PCS's general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union described industrial action as "inevitable". The public should prepare for "a campaign of resistance the like of which we have not seen in this country for decades". He said that unless unions worked together to fight back the future was "bleak". The Unite union also warned that meals on wheels, free fruit at school and social care services for the elderly were "hanging by a thread" as councils across the UK braced themselves for the heftiest cuts in a generation.

The warning could put new pressure on the Treasury to limit planned cuts in Britain's defence capabilities. The National Security Council will soon meet to discuss the detailed impact of the cuts. The Daily Telegraph today begins a major series of articles examining the implications of the Strategic Defence and Security Review. The review will reshape the nation's defence strategy, and raise questions about Britain's role in the world.

An agreement between Nato countries commits them to spending at least 2 per cent of their gross domestic product on defence. Britain is one of the few Nato members apart from the US that currently meets that goal. The 37 billion pounds a year defence budget could be cut by almost a fifth as the Treasury squeezes public spending and Dr Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, struggles to pay for an unfunded "black hole" for new equipment.

Whitehall sources have disclosed that provisional estimates from MoD negotiations with the Treasury show core defence spending could fall below Nato's 2 per cent standard - perhaps to as little as 1.7 per cent of GDP. The US routinely spends more than 4 per cent of GDP on defence, and military analysts say the widening gap will make it harder for European forces to work with US forces equipped with ever more sophisticated equipment.

It is understood that a senior American official recently called the MoD to discuss "concerns" about the prospect of an even greater spending gap.

This nervous, defensive mood is becoming more apparent among hedge funds. The $1.5 trillion industry lost money again in August as stock markets turned south. Stanley Druckenmiller - a key architect of billionaire George Soros' famous bet against sterling - is closing his hedge fund firm after 30 years. Another hedge fund manager, Paolo Pellegrini, plans to return his investors' money this month.

This is just an example how hard it has become to make money in a skittish market for many investors, especially ahead of the November US mid-term elections, where President Barack Obama's Democrats could face big losses. "Given the uncertain outlook, we are maintaining a defensive stance and remain focused on capital preservation," noted Dirk Wiedmann, chief investment officer of Rothschild Private Banking & Trust. The coming week brings no shortage of data which could determine the near-term economic outlook and investor risk tolerance. Key Chinese indicators and US retail sales data are among them.

A survey by Fidelity Investments released in the past week showed pension plans are moving away from equities and into fixed income as their concerns about funding shortfalls grow. The survey, which polled US, Canadian and European pensions which oversaw more than $2 trillion in assets, also showed almost two out of three pension plans saw a need for downside protection when markets tumble.

"What we are seeing now is a tussle between the 50 percent sustained speculation branch and the branch where two of three things go wrong and crack confidence. This struggle is an unusual one, and has created market effects I have never seen before," noted Jeremy Grantham, chief investment strategist at US money manager GMO. "Low rates... merely produce a feeling in ordinary individual investors somewhere between dejection and desperation. They hate to park money in cash at negative real returns, and yet they are still thoroughly nervous... about normal equity investing."

The administration plans to tout the $60 billion package as a major job creator - supporting at least 75,000 jobs, according to company estimates - and sees the sale of advanced fighter jets and military helicopters to key Middle Eastern ally Riyadh as part of a broader policy aimed at shoring up Arab allies against Iran.

In a notification to Congress, expected to be submitted this week or next, the administration will authorize the Saudis to buy as many as 84 new F-15 fighters, upgrade 70 more, and purchase three types of helicopters - 70 Apaches, 72 Black Hawks and 36 Little Birds, officials said.

On top of the $60 billion package of fighter jets and helicopters, US officials are discussing a potential $30 billion package to upgrade Saudi Arabia's naval forces. An official described these as "discreet, bilateral conversations" in which no agreement has yet been reached. That deal could include littoral-combat ships - surface vessels intended for operations close to shore, the official said.

"The US has run out of bullets," Roubini told an economic forum in Italy earlier this month. "Any shock at this point can tip you back into recession." But other economists, who have so far stayed out of the media limelight, are also proselytizing nightmarish visions of the future.

Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff, who warned as far back as the 1980s of the dangers of a public deficit, lent credence to such dark predictions in an International Monetary Fund publication last week. He unveiled a doomsday scenario - which many dismiss as pure fantasy - of an economic clash between superpowers the United States and China, which holds more than 843 billion dollars of US Treasury bonds.

"A minor trade dispute between the United States and China could make some people think that other people are going to sell US treasury bonds," he wrote in the IMF's Finance & Development review. "That belief, coupled with major concern about inflation, could lead to a sell-off of government bonds that causes the public to withdraw their bank deposits and buy durable goods."

Kotlikoff warned such a move would spark a run on banks and money market funds as well as insurance companies as policy holders cash in their surrender values. "In a short period of time, the Federal Reserve would have to print trillions of dollars to cover its explicit and implicit guarantees. All that new money could produce strong inflation, perhaps hyperinflation," he said.